STATE HOUSE ROUNDUP -- 'No days off'' doesn't apply

The slow start to the year on Beacon Hill got an assist last week from the dangerously distracting one-two punch of championship euphoria and the first significant snowfall of the season.

By Matt Murphy State House News Service

The slow start to the year on Beacon Hill got an assist last week from the dangerously distracting one-two punch of championship euphoria and the first significant snowfall of the season.

The former essentially turned Feb. 6 into a bleary-eyed reliving of how Tom Brady engineered the greatest Super Bowl comeback in history to defeat the Atlanta Falcons. The latter turned Feb. 9 into a governor-sanctioned day off for revelry recuperation.

Sandwiched between Super Bowl hangovers, a victory parade and the blizzard called Niko, Gov. Charlie Baker continued his Supreme Judicial Court makeover, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was simultaneously silenced and handed a megaphone in one deep Mitch McConnell breath and House Speaker Robert DeLeo gave Jay Gonzalez something to build off for his gubernatorial campaign.

Meanwhile, as giddy New Englanders were quickly reminded Feb. 9 that Punxsutawney Phil wasn't joking around when he said there would be six more weeks of winter, the Legislature's hibernation continued. Since taking office in January, lawmakers have barely poked their heads from the den except to gavel through a pay raise bill for public officials.

But if someone thought legislative leaders might be inspired by Patriots coach Bill Belichick leading the City Hall Plaza crowd Feb. 7 in a uniquely Belichickian chant of "No Days Off," they were in for a letdown.

DeLeo, apparently, is not the taskmaster Belichick is.

The sloppy mix of snow and rain that fell on paradegoers turned to a sheet of ice overnight, making for a treacherous morning commute Feb. 8 before spring-like weather settled in.

Nevertheless, DeLeo postponed due to "inclement weather" what was supposed to be a noon caucus for House Democrats to get all their feelings about the new president off their chest and discuss how the body should respond to the actions taken so far by President Donald Trump.

The easiest path would be to pass some sort of resolution, like the Senate did, opposing actions like Trump's immigration order, which remained in limbo after a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government's request to put the travel restrictions back in place.

Another option, which was floated by DeLeo Feb. 6, would be to take more concrete steps to put distance between Massachusetts and the White House by banning county sheriffs from taking inmates out-of-state to work on building Trump's Mexican border wall.

Several representatives have already filed legislation to do just that.

That internal debate for House Democrats will have to wait, but the cities of Lawrence and Chelsea were decided in how they plan to deal with another of Trump's executive orders.

The cities, both heavily populated with immigrants, sued the White House over the order, which would stop cities from receiving federal funds if they do not comply with federal immigration law. As one of more than a handful of so-called "sanctuary cities" in Massachusetts, the lawsuit argues that policies limiting local police's involvement in enforcing federal immigration law do not actually violate any federal law.

Therefore, the cities contend, Trump has no basis for withholding federal funding.

The 50-degree temperatures didn't stop DeLeo from rolling out his early education plan, promising to boost funding in next year's budget for early educator salaries and benefits. The speaker also said he would file legislation in the next two months to improve professional development opportunities for preschool educators.

The action plan stemmed from a report produced by a group of business leaders that DeLeo tasked last year with assessing an early education system that he described as "in crisis," plagued by paltry pay and high turnover rates.

Gonzalez, who launched his campaign for governor the previous week and made early education a central theme of it, was on hand to take some credit for serving on the speaker's task force and helping to write the report.

The speaker's early ed announcement, coupled with his appearance next month before business community members of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, will be used as a substitute for the more traditional, agenda-setting speech to House members this year, according to aides.

By then, DeLeo may have the information he says he wants before making a call on tax increases in next year's budget and whether the revenue-and-spending balance exists to make good on his goal of restoring at least some of the $98 million in spending cut from the budget by Baker in December.

Since Democrats lashed out at Baker's cuts for being "premature," the monthly revenue reports that they thought would give them the ammunition they needed to overrule the governor have been lacking.

With each passing month of solid, but not surplus-creating tax collections, the timeframe for reversing the cuts gets extended. DeLeo said last week he now wants to see February numbers, and will then make a call on whether some of the $98 million can be put back. By March, just four months will remain in the fiscal year and Baker's midyear spending cuts will have already been in place for three months.

At the same time DeLeo rolled out his early education agenda, Baker was in another part of the State House introducing Appeals Court Judge Elspeth Cypher as his latest nominee to the Supreme Judicial Court.

If confirmed, the 57-year-old Assonet resident will become Baker's fourth jurist on the top court and replace SJC Justice Margot Botsford, a Deval Patrick appointee who hits the mandatory retirement age of 70 next month.

So far, Baker has tapped judges first put on the bench by all four of his immediate predecessors. Cypher was first nominated for a judgeship by the late Paul Cellucci. And while it hasn't always been clear how the governor's pick might impact the state court, Martin Healy, the chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Bar Association, said Baker appears to be moving the court " more to the center."

Someone who may never be accused of moving toward the center is U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

As she held the Senate floor the night of Feb. 7 to speak against Attorney General Jeff Sessions' nomination, the Bay State Democrat began to read from a letter written in 1986 by Coretta Scott King opposing Sessions' nomination for a federal judgeship.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell objected to the tenor of the letter and Warren's remarks, and used an obscure rule against impugning the motives and conduct of a colleague to put Warren in timeout for the remainder of the debate.

But McConnell's decision to justify the silencing by insisting that Warren had "persisted" despite earlier warnings only gave Warren a bigger platform from which to speak. It's probably safe to say the number of people who have now read King's letter surpassed the initial CSPAN 2 viewership that night.

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